The following is an excerpt from LEIGH CUEN | May 6, 2017 | ibtimes.com |

The cryptocurrency ether, which hails from the open source blockchain network Ethereum, is now valued at over $100 per token for the first time since the Ethereum platform went live in the summer of 2015. Much like the fellow cryptocurrency bitcoin, the market value of ether has surged upwards over the past few weeks. Coindesk reported ether’s value skyrocketed 900 percent so far this year.

The New York Department of Fiscal Services has already approved Ethereum trading and ether tokens are officially a regulated currency. Ethereum has also attracted investment from major corporations like Microsoft and JPMorgan Chase, two of the 30 companies that now make up the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance. Yet the new blockchain technology is still largely shrouded in mystery.

Read: UN Using Blockchain Technology To Help Refugees, Fight World Hunger

So International Business Times sat down with Jutta Steiner, founder and COO of Parity Technologies, a blockchain startup that developed an Ethereum network browser. Parity Technologies is one of the companies behind the United Nation’s first large-scale Ethereum test, a humanitarian aid project at refugee camps in Jordan. Together with Steiner, we’ve put together a list of three things you need to know about this up and coming cryptocurrency.

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